Age no barrier to Hamburg-area Scouts and their leader enjoying latest reunion

Girl Scout Troop 47 members reunited in their rented home on the Outer Banks of North Carolina this spring. In front is the leader, Jutta Bausher. Standing in the row behind her are Theresa Brady Haas, from left, Carole Epting Wentzel, Gerry Ney Wagner and Carol Whitman Schappell. And on the stairs are Judy Williamson Keller, from left, Joan Moyer Adams, Louise Wagner Kempka, Linda Bobes Cox and Dorothy Althouse Balthaser.

A group of Girl Scouts sharing 63 years of friendship as members of Troop 47 from Hamburg back in 1950 traveled to the Outer Banks in North Carolina this spring, and they are keeping their bonds strong.

E. Stewart Degler, 70, of Muhlenberg Township, drove these Girl Scouts on their seven-hour trip into the warmer region in a 12-passenger van, He had gone to high school with them and remained a good friend.

The women began traveling together eight years ago to visit fellow Girl Scout Louise Wagner Kempka, 71, who relocated to Washington, N.C. And while there, they always do plenty of sightseeing and exploring.

With a first authentic reunion in 1990 to celebrate Bausher's 60th birthday, as she had been their leader and was just a few years their senior, the group has met annually ever since and also keeps in touch through monthly school class reunion lunches around Hamburg.

Their next troop reunion is slated for September.

During their trip to the Outer Banks this year, the women visited the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kill Devil Hills, the Elizabethan Gardens in Manteo, the graveyard of the Atlantic Museum in Hatteras and the Currituck Beach Lighthouse in Corolla, N.C., to name just a few.

"We saw a 5-day-old colt," Adams said about the group glimpsing the wild horses so mysterious and iconic to lands around Route 12 in North Carolina.

When the group gets together for reunions, the members often stir up old Girl Scout games and fun like treasure hunts based around finding certain beautiful details in nature. But they also reminisce.

"It's wonderful," Adams said, noting that the group of women she's a part of has kept tight-knit over the years since starting with 19 girls more than six decades ago. "It's great to see familiar faces, and most of us graduated together."

They all started at Hamburg Elementary School in their early days.

"We get along great, and nobody ever complains," she said. "We work well together, and everybody always pitches in, but we give a lot of credit to Bausher, our leader."

As Girl Scouts, the women attended Bausher's wedding decades ago and cleaned her first apartment for a badge.